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  Ride With Me

  Copyright © 2018 by Ashley Hastings. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Design: Just Write. Creations

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Ride With Me

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight

  Twenty-nine

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  For Kelly, forever and always.

  Prologue

  "Lucy? Where are you, baby?" A strong masculine voice called out, loud in the tiny house.

  The little girl giggled and shrank back further into the closet. A heavy, steel-toed boot poked uncomfortably into her back, but she ignored the discomfort, delighted by her game.

  "Are you...under the bed?" The voice softened a bit as the speaker bent over to peer under the queen-sized bed. "Nope. You aren't under the bed."

  Quiet footsteps came closer to the closet.

  "Are you hiding in my sock drawer?"

  Lucy heard the sound of a drawer scraping open on the old walnut dresser, and she giggled again. Her daddy was so funny. How could she fit in that little sock drawer? The mental picture of her crammed into the drawer, resting on a bed of her daddy's socks made her giggle again. Smelly daddy socks. Gross.

  The closet door creaked open.

  "GOTCHA!"

  Her daddy appeared in the doorway, smiling down at her. Lucy screamed and cackled, and tried to run, but daddy scooped her up. He tickled her and sat down on the bed still holding her tight. The shiny star he always wore clipped to his belt pressed cold into her side.

  "You found me, Daddy." Lucy was smiling so hard, it hurt.

  Daddy dropped a kiss on Lucy's upturned nose. "I'll always find you, Lucy. I'll always be close by, watching over you and keeping you safe." His large, calloused hands cradled her head, and Lucy knew nothing could ever harm her.

  Lucy's daddy was the greatest daddy ever.

  LUCY WAS SLEEPING HARD when Grandma shook her awake. "Get up, Lucy. That's a good girl."

  Yawning, Lucy stretched and grumbled a protest. "Why are we up? It's dark outside."

  Grandma sat down on the faded quilt that covered Lucy's bed. "Something's happened, baby. I need to get you dressed so we can go to the hospital." She ran her hand up and down Lucy's back.

  "The hospital? Did somebody get sick?" Lucy sat up and let Grandma slip her arms into her jacket. She took her tennis shoes from Grandma and put them on in a hurry. Grandma's lips were pinched together in a tight line. She only looked like that when something was wrong, like when the pipes broke last winter, and the kitchen floor filled up with water.

  "Your daddy got hurt tonight on the job." Grandma's words were short and clipped.

  "He got hurt helping somebody?" Lucy's daddy helped people. He got into a car with lights on top of it every afternoon, and he rode around town helping people who needed it. Lucy was glad her daddy was such a good helper, and she tried to be a helper, too, when she could.

  Lucy hustled to keep up with Grandma as she hurried them from the house and into their old Ford pickup. She felt funny wearing her nightgown with her shoes and jacket. Looking down, she realized she had put her shoes on the wrong feet. Silly Lucy.

  She stopped to fix her shoes.

  "Lucy Bennett! Don't worry about your shoes! We've got to go, NOW!" Grandma was crying. Why hadn't Lucy noticed that before?

  "I'm coming, Grandma. Don't cry." Lucy scrambled up onto the truck seat, and off they went. Lucy wasn't going to cry; she was going to be cheerful so daddy would feel better. That's what daddy did when Lucy had a funny in her tummy, or her head hurt. Daddy would be cheerful, so Lucy would do that, too.

  Over the next few days, nobody was cheerful. In fact, lots of people cried. Lucy didn't cry, however. She didn't understand why everyone was so sad. People kept coming and going from the house, and everyone told Lucy to be brave for Grandma. She didn't know why they kept saying that to her. She always tried to be brave, except when she saw a spider. She hated spiders.

  Daddy was the spider killer. Lucy didn't have to be brave about spiders because daddy took care of them for her. Except daddy didn't come home from the hospital. Instead, he had to sleep in a big wooden box, and he wouldn't wake up, even when Lucy said his name.

  And then the man in the dark suit closed the box. He knelt down next to Lucy and clipped daddy's shiny star to Lucy's dress. She realized that daddy wasn't going to get out of the box and come home to play with her. Not ever again. The fun times were over.

  That's when Lucy started to cry, and once she started, she didn't know if she would ever stop.

  One

  Tonight I went on my first blind date. Now I'm leaning against a police cruiser, watching the blue lights flash on my date's face. He's in handcuffs, and not in a fun way.

  So how did I get here? Let's review the facts.

  A few hours ago, I thought what an excellent first date. Sitting in a cozy, Italian restaurant, I listened to the canned music playing overhead and surveyed Colton from across the red-checked tablecloth. Colton was handsome in the flickering candlelight.

  He had no idea I was reviewing my Manlist in my head, and checking off items one by one.

  Maybe I could fall in love with this guy. Of course, I wasn't going to rush the situation and act desperate and crazy, but this man had potential. After all, why date someone who didn't have what I wanted for the long haul?

  During my first few years of college, I dated my share of losers. You know the type of guy I'm talking about. The ones who are fun to hang out with, but have no future. They talk a good game but don't really have a long-term plan in place. I’ve wasted some time with more than one of those guys.

  I like plans. I like goals. You need plans and goals in order to have a successful future. For example, let me tell you about my plan for success. I finished my college degree in journalism about a year ago. While I was in school, I worked all the best internships I could find, got good grades, and collected stellar letters of reference. Now I am in graduate school pursuing my Master's degree. I planned to author an awesome thesis project, graduate, and get a job in nearby Jackson, Mississippi. That way I could advance my career while being close enough to home to take care of my grandmother back in our small town of Peacock.

  I would marry, of course, and have exactly two children. Why two? I was an only child, and sometimes that was lonely growing up. More than two sounded like more than I could handle. So, precisely two children. Then I would go back to school to get my doctorate and become a professor.

  I thought out every step in detail. You can't leave things to chance, or fate, or whatever. You need a plan if you want things to work out. A plan helps you stay in control of life, so there aren’t any nasty surprises. So if I didn't want to
continue dating losers, I needed to come up with a plan for that.

  I created a checklist of what I'm looking for in a man, Lucy Bennett's Manlist. I had started out calling it my Man Checklist, but it just shortened itself naturally over time to Manlist. Then I color-coded it, blew it up, and laminated it. Hung it on the wall next to my desk. Here’s what it covered.

  Manlist

  1. Job

  2. Good living situation

  3. Loving/caring

  4. No temper tantrums

  5. Loves animals

  6. Does not smoke pot

  7. Does not spend all his free time playing video games

  8. Excellent father potential

  9. Reasonably attractive

  10. Dependability

  I'm sure every single girl in the country has one of these color-coded, poster-sized lists hanging up on their walls. No? Just me? Okay, maybe not every girl has a list this organized, but they probably have one in their head.

  I selected each item based on a personal experience I had dating, or had at least witnessed first hand through one of my friends’ dating lives. For example, I dated this one guy, Kevin. Kevin was cute and charming, and we had a lot of fun playing beer pong one weekend. But Kevin spent all of his free time smoking marijuana and playing video games. He moved from couch to couch in his friends’ apartments because he spent all of his money on pot and games.

  I didn’t want any more Kevins in my life, so I came up with my checklist.

  Let's look at the data, shall we? Let's compare Colton to the Manlist.

  Job

  "So tell me, what do you do for a living? Karen didn't give me a lot of information about you. She just told me I had to go out with this great guy she knows." I made air quotes as I talked.

  Colton smiled and leaned closer to me. He smelled nice, like a pine forest. "I'm an accountant at Delaney, Reynolds, and Smith. I've worked there two years now, and I really love my job."

  Colton had a job as an accountant. How great was that? Cut and dried. A numbers man. Excellent. That suggested he would always have steady work and could balance his checkbook.

  Check job off the list.

  "That's awesome. I'm just working part-time myself, at the coffee shop in town. You know, Witches' Brew? I'm putting myself through graduate school right now." I closed my menu without even looking at it. I always ordered the fettuccine alfredo when I ate Italian. Good stuff. Hard for a restaurant to mess up.

  Good living situation

  Like any responsible single girl, I hadn't let Colton pick me up for this fix-up. Instead, I met him at the restaurant. So he didn't know where I lived on campus, and I didn't know where he lived. Time to fix that.

  "Karen told me you guys met when you were living in the same dorm. Cresswell, right?" We paused the conversation long enough to give our orders to the smiling server.

  "Yeah, I lived in Cresswell for two years. It wasn't bad as far as dorms go. Then I had an apartment off campus, over on Hillview. Now that place was awful. The air conditioner was always breaking down, and the ceiling over my bed had this huge water stain. Don't even get me started on the carpet. As soon as I got my job at the firm and saved up the down payment, I bought a condo." Colton leaned back as he spoke.

  "You own your condo? That's great! I still live in campus housing. I guess I will until I finish my master's degree. It's the cheapest option, and I don't mind dorm life." I sipped my sweet tea and surveyed him over the glass.

  I was impressed that Colton was a homeowner. Now, don't get the wrong idea. I am not materialistic. Not at all. But I was done dating guys who couch surfed. I wanted a man with a stable living environment.

  "Yeah. I live in that new complex over on Shady Grove. It's pretty small, just two bedrooms, but that's all I need. I have a roommate to help pay the bills, so that way I can get ahead on the mortgage. I have a plan to pay off the note in twelve years, instead of thirty."

  He had a plan? I wonder if he color-coded it.

  That's a definite check for a good living situation.

  In my head, I scanned down the Manlist to number three.

  Loving/caring

  It was way too early to assess number three. Although Colton did hold the door open for me when I entered the restaurant, so that was something, right? I guess only time would tell, for sure.

  The server placed our food in front of us with a flourish. A new song came on, Angel by Sarah McLachlan. You know, that sad, sappy song that plays over and over in the commercials that show cold, malnourished puppies with big, soulful eyes. Aha! An opportunity.

  "This song always gets to me. You know that commercial, right? With the abused animals?" I twirled fettuccine on my fork and glanced at Colton.

  "Yeah. Those poor dogs. I have to admit I signed up to give $20 bucks a month to the animal rescue fund." He wiped his mouth with his napkin. "I don't even have a pet, but that commercial made me whip out my credit card."

  Check.

  What's next? Oh, yes.

  No temper tantrums

  Too soon to call, but so far no red flags.

  I remembered a date with a classmate not too long ago. Mitchell had become enraged when he got cut off in traffic, and had tailgated the driver for miles, honking his horn and acting a fool.

  I would have to watch Colton carefully for signs of a temper.

  Loves animals

  See number three above.

  Check.

  This date was going very well. There were only ten items on my Manlist.

  Does not smoke pot

  I wasn't really against marijuana, but I had seen enough stoners in college to realize I did not want to spend my future in the drive-thru line of Taco Bell at midnight on a Friday just because someone had the munchies.

  "So I saw on Facebook that California just legalized recreational marijuana use. What do you think about that?" I smiled at him, the picture of innocence. Just making conversation here, as any good date would.

  His eyes shifted away from mine as he leaned back and scratched his chin. "I hadn't heard that. Good for them, I guess. I'm not much of pot smoker, myself. I have a regular job to go to every day. I don't need the distraction." He tried to coax ketchup from the bottle with his butter knife.

  "I know, right? My roommate my first year in school smoked pot all the time. She didn't come back for our second year." We fell into a comfortable silence; the only sounds were the occasional scraping of a fork or the chink of ice in our glasses.

  Does not spend all his free time playing video games

  "So tell me, what do you like to do in your spare time?" Colton's eyes sparkled at me as we finished eating, then he glanced over my shoulder and stiffened.

  I turned in my chair to see what had attracted his attention. I didn't see anything unusual at all. Just an older couple sharing a pizza, and a tall, well-built man who had his back to us as he waited in line for his to go order.

  I turned back around. "I like to read and write in my journal. I like to clean my room and organize my stuff." I laughed a little. "My friends will tell you I like order. Everything has to be in its place at all times. I make a lot of lists to keep me organized and on track." I put my fork down. "What about you?"

  "I dabble a little in the stock market. Not much, but I like to research stocks and see what might be a good investment. I made over $1,000 on Bitcoin last week." He tapped his fingers on the table and looked around for our server.

  I noticed he was sweating a little. That's odd. The restaurant was a bit chilly. I hoped he wasn't getting sick.

  "What about video games? Most of my male friends play a little." That was an understatement. Most of my male friends played a lot. It could get annoying, so that's why I added it to my list. I liked playing with them sometimes, but I didn't want it to be a daily activity.

  "I like to play Grand Theft Auto, but not very often. I'm at least two versions behind. Sometimes I play with my roommate, but I would rather do something else." He succeeded
in flagging down the server and started looking over our tab.

  Check.

  Excellent potential as a father

  Too soon.

  Reasonably attractive

  Colton had blond hair and blue eyes. He had muscles, but not so many he would spend more time at the gym than with me.

  Definite check.

  That made me reconsider part of number eight.

  Excellent potential as a father

  Too soon. The blond hair and blue eyes combo would produce some pretty babies. We would look good together since I had matching blond curls and dark blue eyes of my own. On second thought, that was the superficial stuff.

  Okay, okay. Too soon.

  Dependability

  Colton showed up on time for our date. He was actually fifteen minutes early. That's a sign of dependability, right?

  Okay, I know it's too soon to tell.

  Overall, I was impressed. I had chosen my ten items for my Manlist with great care. I tried to make them scientific and measurable. Sure, some of it is subjective, but as long as I could offer evidence for or against each item, I was good with it.

  Colton was scoring high on our first date. Now it was a matter of spending some time with him to prove or disprove my theory that he was a potential life partner.

  See what I mean about having a plan? A plan doesn't let you down. A plan doesn't disappoint. I had this all figured out.

  I was good at this dating stuff.

  Colton slapped down a wad of cash on the table to pay the bill.

  "Ready to go? I was thinking maybe we could drive over to Maple Grove and catch a movie." He stood up. "I'm hoping you've spent enough time with me now to be okay with getting in my car." His smile was warm and teasing, but I noticed his eyes cut back over my shoulder.

  "Sure! That sounds like fun. Let me stop by the restroom first. I'll meet you outside." I grabbed my purse and headed down a short hallway, looking for the restroom.

  I took care of business and went toward the front door of the restaurant. In my rush, I bumped into someone by accident.